I'm doing some minor operational work tonight. It should be transparent, but there's always a chance that something goes wrong. The main thing I'm touching is testing a replacement for Apache2 (our web server software) in one area of the site.
The core of the Eastern Sudanic hypothesis is the idea that Nubian - historically the largest language family of Sudan proper - is related to Nilotic, the largest language family of South Sudan. One complication for this analysis is that, as the primary language of the medieval Nubian kingdoms, Nubian was well-positioned to influence the more northerly Nilotic languages from an early date. A couple of possible cases recently came to my attention.
Mabaan (not to be confused with Maban) is spoken in South Sudan's Upper Nile province near the Yabus River, at the southern fringes of a region historicallly dominated by the Funj sultanates. It belongs to the Burun subgroup of West Nilotic. In the course of elicitation recently, I was struck some domestic animal terms that did not seem to have obvious cognates elsewhere in West Nilotic:
"horse": mún-t̪-ʌ̂n, pl. mún-t̪án
"pig": kúc-c-ʌ̀, pl. kwɔ́t̪-în
"camel": kʌ́l-ŋʌ̂n, pl. kʌ́l-ŋàn
"sheep": kál-ŋ̀, pl. kʌ́l-ìn
"Horse" immediately recalls Old Nubian and modern Nobiin murti, borrowed across a wide area of eastern Africa (see e.g. Rilly 2009:168) including into nearby Bertha as murθá (Bender 1989). The nasal is not isolated; as Andersen (2006) shows, in Mabaan most nouns that originally ended in stops have replaced them with the corresponding nasal in the singular, reflecting merger with a secondary singular suffix *-n. However, this development did not affect nouns ending in *r, which regularly becomes y; is this a regular development of the cluster *-rt-, perhaps?
"Pig" is evidently likewise to be related to Old Nubian kutunni (pl.; Browne 1996:102) and similar forms spread equally widely across the Sudan, including in Sudanese Arabic (cf. Spaulding 1989). Proto-Koman *gUd̪Um (Otero 2019) is part of the same series, but the voicing difference suggests a different borrowing path (though some Koman languages do have k- here).
"Camel" is a more widespread root, though it does not seem to be found elsewhere in West Nilotic, and most similar forms elsewhere in the region start with g/j (as in Arabic or Cushitic) rather than k. Old (and modern) Nubian kam- is a possible source, via a plural such as Kunuzi kamli; Mabaan's closest relative, Jumjum, has kalman, pl. kʌlʌmgʌ (Jumjum Language Committee 2020), suggesting historical loss of m in the Mabaan form.
For "sheep", the most immediate comparandum is found next door in Koman: Central Koman *kʰālí (Otero 2019). Jumjum kabal matches Uduk kʰāɓāl (Killian 2015). The similarity to Old Nubian tikan- (modern tiigan) is probably only suggestive; it would neither explain the l nor the b/Ø variation.
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I wanted to get email subscriptions working again so that anyone who prefers reading Balashon by email can do that, and now that it’s set up, I hope to start posting again soon.
This time I have nothing to talk about but things from my pile of graphic novels from the library. I picked up another set of holds, and then put in even more holds, but I’m getting to the end of things I want to check out so it's possible the pile will diminish eventually.
I read so many books in January, after so long of not reading very much. It’s nice but my brain sure confuses me.
Estranged by Ethan M. Aldridge—I really liked this author’s other book, The Pale Queen, so I thought I’d look into other graphic novels he created. This one is good too! The same lovely art, cool world building and some nice found family feelings.
The Lost Sunday by Iléana Surducan—A sweet kids graphic novel inspired by fairy tales. It’s very short. As a non-christian I don’t love the association of Sunday with the day of rest, but it is otherwise lovely. The art is very fun, very expressive with good use of colors.
Gotham Academy, issues 1-18 by Becky Cloonan et al.— I was always going to love a story about plucky girl investigators at a boarding school who are friends with each other! The fact that this is set in Gotham and features appearances by members of the bat family is just a bonus. It’s got kinda a spooky vibe but it’s not really scary. I've been reading comics from the 90s, so it was fun to check out something more recent, and nice to have some different art styles. (I’m not really a fan of 90’s comic art styles even if the city scapes are good)
Mia “Maps” Mizoguchi is so much fun! She's clever and excitable and so enthusiastic about everything! I love her! I'm going to have to track down all the stories she appears in so I can read them.
Stage Dreams by Melanie Gillman—A fun queer western adventure – I appreciated the author’s historical notes in the back. The subdued but warm color plate for this really added a nice touch.
Sanity & Tallulah, Field Trip,and Shortcuts by Molly Brooks—The first two of these were rereads, as I read them a while back and didn't remember them that well. These graphic novels are fun! Sanity and Tallulah are two girls living on a space station. They are friends with each other and have slightly madcap adventures. I also liked how this handled worldbuilding with each book showing a larger and more complicated section of Sanity and Tullaulah’s universe, especially the way the earlier books drop hints about the larger situation but you don’t fully see it until the third book.
Imagine you’re in a field with someone whose language you don’t speak. A rabbit scurries by. The other person says “Gavagai!” You probably assumed they meant “rabbit” but they could have meant something else, like “scurrying” or even “lo! an undetatched rabbit-part!”
We spent a whole episode getting enthusiastic about how we manage to understand each other when we’re learning new words, inspired by the famous “Gavagai” thought experiment from the philosopher of language WVO Quine.
Well I haven’t gotten very far with my pile of graphic novels from the library, and in fact I’ve put holds on even more of them so the pile is only getting bigger. But did finish enough things that it feels worth posting another media roundup.
Goat Magic by Kate Wheeler—Another graphic novel, this one with very cute goats. The art for this one was so cute and charming. I did feel a little bit frustrated with the politics, where there was some confusion about bad people vs bad systems. Also the romance kinda came out of nowhere (It didn’t help that I thought one of the main characters was like 12) Still a pretty fun book overall.
The Two Towers—Watched this with the kid and R, who as mentioned have recently finished reading the books. It’s fun to discuss the changes between the book and the movie with the kiddo! Also I forgot how good the armor details are in this! However a three hour movie with some chatting is a lot for me – at the end I was hitting sensory overload and needed to go sit somewhere quiet by myself for a while.
The Legend of the Demon Cat (2017)—I watched this movie with my group watch. It’s about a cat demon but also features Tang dynasty poet Bai Juyi and various other historical figures. It was really good, though I’m having a hard time explaining why. It has a really big emotional range – some bits are creepy (and there is a bit of gore), some bits are sad, but some bits are really fun. And Bai Juyi’s character in this is great!
Unboxing Libby by Steph Cherrywell—My kid’s school is doing an optional book club, and this was the most recent book. I’ve been reading the books along with the kid and this is the third book this year. It’s about robots made to be kids toys who end up being used to simulate a human community on Mars. I really liked it! the friendship stuff was complicated and good!
Remember how I was all like “I guess I don’t read much original fiction anymore but I’m at peace with it” in my post about my 2025 media? Yet somehow I have read 10 books this month? They are mostly graphic novels which are quicker and easier for me, but still books are books. I don’t really expect to keep this up but it's nice for now.
Language is all around us. This sentence right here, is language! But between the raw experience of someone saying something and a linguistic analysis of what they’ve said, there are certain steps that make it easier for that analysis to happen, or to be understood or reproduced by others later.
In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about how language becomes linguistic data. We talk about making recordings of language, transcribing real-life or recorded language, annotating recordings or transcriptions, archiving all those materials for future generations, restoring archival materials from decaying formats, and presenting this information in useful ways when writing up an analysis. Along the way, we touch on playing 100+ year old songs from cracked wax cylinders, the multi-line glossing format used so readers can understand examples in a language they’re not already fluent in, analyzing spontaneous conversation using tapes from the Watergate Scandal, recognizing everyone who’s contributed (including your own intuitions!), and Lauren’s role on a big committee of linguists and archivists formalizing principles for data citation in linguistics.
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In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about some of our favourite deleted bits from recent interviews that we didn’t quite have space to share with you! First, an excerpt from our interview with Adam Aleksic about tiktok and how different online platforms give rise to different kinds of communication styles. Second, a return to our interview with Miguel Sánchez Ibáñez for a bit about Spanish internet slang, -och, and why “McCulloch” looks like a perfect name for an author of a book about internet linguistics. Finally, deleted scenes from our advice episode, in which we reveal some Lingthusiasm lore about pronouncing “Melbourne” and imitating each other’s accents and answer questions about linguistics degrees and switching languages with people..
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Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).
2026 LingComm Grants – Small Grants for Communicating Linguistics to Wider Audiences
We want to see more linguistics in the world!
The 2026 LingComm Grants are $300 (USD) to support linguistics communication projects that bring pop linguistics to broader audiences in new and engaging ways. The grants also include a mentoring meeting with Gretchen McCulloch, Lauren Gawne, and/or an experienced lingcommer who we have personally selected to be relevant to your project to ask your lingcomm process questions, and promotion of your project to our lingthusiastic audience.
We have six $300 LingComm Grants on any topic related to linguistics and an additional $300 Kirby Conrod and Friends LGBTQ+ LingComm Grant.
The initial grants are funded by Lingthusiasm, thanks to the kind support of our patrons, and judged by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. You can help fund the grants and other LingComm projects here. Additional grants in 2026 were funded thanks to Daniel Currie Hall, Sarah Kelen, Lukas Graf, Rob Monarch and other anonymous donors.
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Please apply and/or share with any up and coming lingcommers you know!
Every two years running the LingComm Grants we find out about so many cool lingcomm projects we wouldn’t otherwise have known about, so we’re excited to see what people come up with this year!
On Connor Storrie’s excellent Russian in HR (from a linguist)
Ok it’s time to put my Russian and linguistics (and Slavic linguistics) degrees to work and tell you why Connor Storrie’s Russian and accent work in this show is so freaking good. (Links added for those who want more info about stuff.) Hey other linguists — I’m playing fast and loose with notation here, ok, we’re not doing phonemes and IPA.
We’re going to go over overall mouth shape, palatalization, lack of aspiration, vowel reduction, and intonation with examples from Ilya’s dialogue! I’m going to talk about this from the perspective of an English speaker learning Russian since that’s what Connor (and I) did. Here we go.
1. Overall mouth shape
Every language has what you could think of as its own neutral or resting mouth position (aka, basis of articulation). One way to think of this is what the “I’m thinking” noise is — in English it’s uhh, in Spanish it’s often ehh. In Russian it’s mmm or ehhh or ahhh. The other thing is that the mouth typically does not open as much vertically when speaking Russian as when speaking English, but rather wider (horizontally).
Connor is doing a good job of maintaining a more Russian resting position (and I have a theory that this is one of the reasons his face looks so different as Ilya).
You can see Connor doing this when he says “ehh no” to Shane about whether this is his first time with a man in episode 1.
Also when he’s yelling at Alexei during the funeral in episode 5, we get to see him head on speaking Russian for an extended time, and you can see he is opening his mouth wider but not taller.
2. Palatalization
Every consonant has a place of articulation in your mouth, aka a place where your tongue touches the inside of your mouth or is positioned so that the air flows or is stopped in such a way as to make the sound. Making sounds is all about changing how air flows through our vocal tracts (throat, mouth, nose).
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